Two poems for you: 'We will remember them.'
“No words of mine can soften the blow. There is one consolation for you - your daughter became unconscious immediately after she was hit, and she passed away perfectly peacefully.” - From the letter written by matron Minnie Wood to the parents of staff nurse Nellie Spindler, 1917.
Women of Passchendaele
For the Passchendaele nurse there was no drill,
no readiness for what she must confront
trying to keep her uniform pristine
negotiating boards from tent to tent
she saw the soldier, half his face blown off,
looked on him as might mother, sister, wife
she dragged him from a shell hole still alive
and gave him sips of water ‘til he died
one day she was a surgeon in the field
the next she scribed a diary for the dead
her knees would not stop trembling but her hand
wrote words of consolation to his kin
unconscious moments after the blast
she passed away peacefully at the last
First published in The Linnet's Wings THE SORROW 2018 WWI Centenary Issue
Men of Passchendaele
See, the flood
flows under a crazy moon
and warps the planks we laid across the
mud.
Eyes loom perpetual, watery in the gloom
beneath the
stars amid the smell of blood.
Tree stumps like empty
signposts yield
nothing; but stand like sentries at hell's
door.
Entrenched, abandoned in the field
our hopes that
wars should be no more.
We trample the knowledge that
death is unkind.
Life is the next cigarette and a hard won
mile.
Impervious now to shellfire, eyes forever blind
meet
ours that cannot weep and cannot smile.
First Published in Bewildering Stories Issue 741: 2018
